Infinite:Finite:Infinity
by mister pseudonymous
Summary: In the shadows, something stirs. Sasuke is missing. Itachi sits in a cell. Sakura works against the odds. Hinata takes pictures. Naruto mourns a friendship. In the shadows, something stirs—luring in more players to a game with no rules. ::AU::
1. Prologue

｢Prologue｣

One night I spared a glance  
Out of the corner of my eye  
And spotted a shadow  
Peaking from behind my curtain  
Quickly, it returned to the  
Obscurity that birthed it  
If I had gone to inquire  
I knew it would have been gone  
So I returned to my duties  
And let that shadow linger  
As it was, that nameless thing had  
Infinite possibilities  
And could be anything  
But to search for it and name it  
Would define it and constrict it  
Thus I am content with the shadow  
Remaining as something unknown


	2. One:Shadows:Thrumming

**∞  
** **Infinite:Finite:Infinity  
｢One:Shadows:Thrumming｣**

She felt like a pilgrim. The engine thrummed with power, nearly numbing her fingertips, its roaring a wild protest to the empty road she traveled. Walled in by trees and shadows, the consuming dark stole the color of the leaves and brush, making her ponder what this very place would be in a few hours. Her foot never leaving the gas, she recklessly raced nothing. She felt like a pilgrim going to a holy land.

The phone rang, its suddenness more shocking than the first booming thunderclap of a storm. She lost control of the car for but a second, nearly crashing. The phone rang still, louder, as she took deep breaths to calm her frayed nerves. She grabbed the receiver, adjusting it to her ear, she spoke, "Haruno."

She could hear the disbelief in his pauses; the judgment in his monotone.

"No I haven't checked. Gimme a sec, I will right now." Adjusting the dials, she turned on the terminal built into her dashboard. She navigated the police BBS subconsciously, more distracted by the flashing hazard lights recoloring her skin a curious shade of yellow. Such distractions, however, abruptly terminated as her green eyes locked on to the thread title, no doubts what her partner wanted her to see.

Uchiha Sasuke, Male Aged 21, Missing.

"Yes," her voice quivered. How unprofessional. He did not comment on her slip. "Yes, we should."

She kept silent for the longest while, contemplating the best way to phrase her next statement without sounding like a fool. "I don't know where I am."


	3. One:Shadows:Buzzing

**∞  
** **Infinite:Finite:Infinity  
｢One:Shadows:Buzzing｣**

Sasuke never before felt such loathing to an inanimate object. The fluorescent lighting buzzed, always incessantly, aggregating into the convoluted jumble of his psyche. Instead, his dark gaze fell heavy, on his brother behind bars, contained like an animal. The familiar hatred, a warm solace by comparison alone.

Itachi languidly leafed through an aged book, oblivious to his younger brother's roiling stress and rage—unaware that no guard bothered to check for a concealed weapon.

The light, flickering momentarily, bathed them in a sterile glow. Sasuke pretended that the monster before him was a stranger. How easy to end the life of someone unrelated…

"Why…?" Why did you kill them?

He closed the book gracefully, long fingers resting on the faded cover. He smiled gently as he said, "It was what you wanted, little brother."

Trembling violently, Uchiha Sasuke left the prison and wandered the dark streets; all the while wondering whether he did not end Itachi's life for Itachi's sake or for his own. So lost in his thoughts, he never heard the mechanical clicking or the flash of the camera taking a picture.


	4. One:Shadows:Ticking

∞  
 **Infinite:Finite:Infinity  
｢One:Shadows:Ticking｣**

She hesitated, rubbing her hands nervously. The timer ticked away like a countdown to her personal doomsday clock that only she could hear. Fear grossly distorted her perceptions of the broken light post, making it twice as tall and twice as perilous. The girl inhaled frigid air, steeling her resolve.

Hinata climbed the post, ever grateful that people avoided the streets that night, and thus no one to witness her irresponsibly. Even through her heavy coat, the gelid metal burned her flesh, but the camera fixed at the end of the lamp post was almost in reach. Edging the final distance, she cheered triumphantly the the stoic dark when, at last, the camera was hers!

The timer went off—the crudely constructed actuator clamped around the shutter button, immortalizing her victory on film. Hinata, perched atop the bar alone, mulled over a way to get down without hurting herself.


	5. One:Shadows:Let it Be

∞  
 **Infinite:Finite:Infinity  
｢One:Shadows:Let it Be｣**

His room, a grave for the living. In a bed with white sheets too heavy, he never stirred or or expressed a complaint. But the nurses, oh their voices, gossiped and whispered and uttered words of tragedy and pity—the story becoming more contrived and maladroit each passing day. However, he failed to correct their fiction.

He had been stranded in a cave.  
He had fought a bear; a matter of self-preservation.  
His best friend had tried to kill him due to a love triangle out of control.  
He had been mining for gold—to pay for his sick mother's medicine—when the cave-in occurred.

No friend, relative, or ill mother visited, and the man, bandaged and comatose, dreamed of better days—one could only hope.

His hospital room, a grave memorializing a man still breathing.

He had murdered his two friends.

"Let him be," the doctor berated, and, for now, the cruel voices ceased.


	6. One:Shadows:Let it Fester

∞  
 **Infinite:Finite:Infinity  
｢One:Shadows:Let it Fester｣**

He typed fervently—every press of the key solidifying his focus on the formulation of words and thoughts and structure. All of the lights alit, keeping stretching, grasping shadows at bay. However, that which lurked in obscurity would not be thwarted. The lights, his aegis, flickered momentarily, and the dark laughed as the nervous sweat dampened his brow.

He typed frantically, but the light kept him safe still. Thrumming. Buzzing. Ticking. Let it fester. Let it be. To glimpse the shadows is is to blind your soul. Let it fester un—

The piercing, reverberating booming of a grandiose explosion halted his hand, hovering over the typewriter. And then the the lights went out. Jiraiya could feel the darkness caressing his pallid skin as he fled into the night, his small typewriter painfully crushed to his chest. Thoughts of Ichiraku and how illuminated it would surely be, gave him the courage he desperately needed.


End file.
